Re: VMs: Further investigatio of folio f1r

[William Edmondson <w.h.edmondson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Anthony

Re synaesthesia

It's not clear how one could divine from an artefact that someone is a synaesthete.

As a synaesthete myself I know of no way that such person, regardless of
the sensory modalities involved in the synaesthesia, could imbue an artefact
with reliable indications of synaesthesia.  Synaesthesia can be talked about,
and reflected upon, and can indeed play a role in an artist's creations.
 But, that this has happened in the creation of an artefact is inscrutible,
just as the synaesthesia itself is inaccessible to another.  Even two people
with synaesthesia who talk about it.... cannot really be sure that they 'know'
or 'understand' another person's sensory world.  My sister has the same form
of synaesthesia I do (coloured perception of black alphanumeric characters
- and yes, the script in the VMs looks coloured to me), but she has different
colours.  But I have no way of knowing that her textual world has the same
detailed characteristics that mine has.  And her novels don't flag up synaesthesia
to a reader.

And, of course, synaesthesia can lead to odd things like coloured flavours,
coloured sounds, textured sounds, and so forth.  All idioscyncratic (for
the most part - there is some slight evidence that 1 is black and 0 is white,
more commonly than not).

So, I'd be interested to know how somone looking at the VMs can see the work
of a synaesthete.

Cheers

William



ajb wrote:
> In message <407329E7.8672.31A406E@localhost>, knoxmix@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> writes
> > --- Now let's get into the mind of the author, who - one thing we are 
> > all almost positive about - wanted to conceal the text, that is the 
> > content of the text 
> >   
>
> Hello Knox
>
> Well, not quite all...
>
> The author was very likely highly intelligent, and seems to have had a
> very unusual mind indeed. (I have a hunch that he may also have been a
> synaesthete.) Suppose that he was engaged in a remarkably abstruse line
> of thought or even had invented or discovered some avenue entirely new,
> for which there would have been no existing suitable vocabulary. He
> might have found his contemporary languages inadequate and limiting and
> have therefore made one suitable to his purpose. In which case the fact
> that the manuscript is unintelligible to us and to others could be a
> circumstance entirely irrelevant to him.
>
> (Not entirely unprecedented - at least, there is a convincing example in
> fiction, which we all know truth is stranger than...)
>
> The waters may well have been still further muddied; if some persons
> unknown had access to the manuscript and, believing it to be immensely
> valuable made their own clandestine and not necessarily entirely
> accurate copy whilst being unable to understand the original - well, if
> 'our' version is this copy, no wonder it drives us mad.
>
> I think I have now also answered Eric's request for a contribution to a
> poll of personal theories.
>
> Regards
>
> Anthony

-- 
Dr William H Edmondson
School of Computer Science
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston B15 2TT
United Kingdom

Voice  -  +44-121-414-4763
email  -  w.h.edmondson@xxxxxxxxxx